Feds say they can force entire tech sector, not just Apple, to disable security.
US government officials from the FBI director down have said repeatedly that the FBI-Apple legal brouhaha was just about a single phone—the seized iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters. And just last week, James Comey, the FBI director, said his fight with Apple wasn't about setting precedent; rather, it was about battling terrorism.
But it seems that the storyline has changed.
The Justice Department now says it will not hesitate to invoke the precedent it won in its iPhone unlocking case. The authorities had obtained a court order weeks ago ordering Apple to write code to help the authorities unlock Farook's phone, all in hopes that data on it could stop another terror attack or shed light on the one that killed 14 people in San Bernardino in December. On Monday, however, the authorities said they didn't need Apple's help, asking the judge presiding over the case to withdraw the order because they had cracked the phone and obtained the desired information, all with the help of an "outside" party. continued…
first published week of: 04/18/2016
Maria Hermosilla, and Beth Noveck in Governing: “An open government is one that is transparent, participatory and collaborative. But moving from traditional government operating behind closed doors to more open institutions, where civil servants work together with citizens to create policies and solve problems, demands new skills and sensibilities.”
As more and more American public-sector leaders embrace the concept of openness as a positive force for governmental effectiveness, they would do well to look toward Brazil’s largest city, where an unusual experiment was just launched: an effort to use a variation on crowdsourcing to retrain Sao Paulo’s 150,000 civil servants. It’s described as the world’s largest open-government training program.
The program, known as Agents of Open Government – part of a wider city initiative called “Sao Paulo Aberta” (Open Sao Paulo) — aims to teach through peer-to-peer learning, where government employees learn from citizens. Twenty-four citizen-led courses that began last month are aimed not only at government employees and elected community representatives but also at social activists and the general population. continued…
first published week of: 01/25/2016
Just launched: National cooperative contract for technology products and services
Technology purchases are on the rise, according to the Gartner technology research firm. “The U.S. state and local government IT market is turning the corner with a renewed focus on modernization and innovation, along with budgets back in positive territory,” say Gartner analysts. In its recent “Market Insight: State and Local Government IT Market Primer,” the firm notes that state and local enterprise IT budgets will reach $71.9 billion in 2016 and climb to $72.8 billion in 2017.
Anything related to open data and data management will see big growth Andrew Hacker, Cyber Security Expert in Residence at Harrisburg University (Pa.) of Science and Technology
The ever-expanding Internet of Things (IoT), where devices, vehicles and other items are embedded with software, sensors and connectivity, is also helping loosen government agencies’ purse strings. Cisco’s Internet of Everything site predicts a $4.6 trillion market in IoT for the public sector in smart cities, outfitting the next-generation worker, traffic management and other apps.
“Anything related to open data and data management will see big growth” as a result of IoT implementations, says Andrew Hacker, Cyber Security Expert in Residence at Harrisburg University (Pa.) of Science and Technology. He tells GPN that governments will need to beef up their IT and network security if manufacturers of IoT products don’t have adequate safeguards and shields from mischief-makers. continued…
first published week of: 06/27/2016
Everyone loves an upgrade—even POTUS. The New York Times reports that the White House has recently undergone a technological transformation, though it may not sound too impressive to many of us: Its employees are now equipped with modern laptops, iPhones and even... color printers.
It’s not easy to overhaul technology in governmental organizations, of course, and apparently it’s particularly tricky in the White House. That’s partly because, according to the Times, the infrastructure is actually overseen by four different bodies—the National Security Council, the Executive Office of the President, the Secret Service and the White House Communications Agency—making wide-scale change hard to agree upon and instigate. continued…
first published week of: 04/04/2016
Software is getting the category management treatment from federal IT and procurement leaders. The White House is directing agencies to pick chief software managers, inventory their existing software licenses and look ahead to a more unified government approach to software acquisition.
Federal CIO Tony Scott and Chief Acquisition Officer Anne Rung have previously decried the billions spent annually on fragmented government software purchases, and on June 2 they released the anticipated official guidance aimed at curbing that waste. continued…
first published week of: 06/06/2016
President Barack Obama is looking to cement a legacy of action on cybersecurity with a fiscal 2017 budget request that calls for over $19 billion in cyber investments, a 35 percent increase from funds enacted the previous year. Obama also is taking a series of actions — from creating a new federal chief information security officer position to setting up an inter-agency privacy council — designed to leave his imprint on cybersecurity policy for years to come.
Despite the administration policy efforts to date, "the cyber threat continues to outpace our current efforts," Michael Daniel, the White House's top cybersecurity adviser, told reporters on a Feb. 8 conference call.
Obama's budget proposal calls for $3.1 billion for a fund to replace IT legacy systems, and $62 million for bolstering the federal workforce through scholarships and other educational initiatives.
The $3.1 billion IT Modernization Fund would bankroll projects that target agencies with the biggest IT woes, and also look to capitalize on shared services, said federal CIO Tony Scott. continued…
first published week of: 02/15/2016
Law enforcement has been seeking greater access to encrypted communications and devices, and although the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., might appear to have strengthened its case, some big names in security are arguing otherwise.
In its white paper, the Chertoff Group sides with Apple in a dispute with the FBI over whether to provide law enforcement agencies with special software to bypass security features in the iPhone. Apple executives have argued that developing software to unlock the phone of one of the San Bernardino shooters would unleash a technological "cancer" that could affect tens of millions of customers.
The Chertoff Group -- which was co-founded by former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and former DHS Chief of Staff Chad Sweet and which counts former CIA Director Michael Hayden as a principal -- largely concurs with Apple's assessment.
The debate over strong encryption has heated up in the past year because device manufacturers have adopted policies that implement local encryption by default, instead of having users opt in. That approach is quickly becoming the norm, and strong consumer encryption around the world is "inevitable." Although strong encryption has been an impediment to law enforcement over the years, "the magnitude of that impediment is modest," the paper states. continued…
first published week of: 03/07/2016
As more cities break into the world of transparency, policy remains an important piece of the open data puzzle.
At this year’s iteration of our annual open government unconference, TransparencyCamp, I had the pleasure of leading a session on the role of policy in the open data movement, and a particular question seemed to strike a chord with participants: Just how relevant and important is an open data policy to a successful open data program? What does it actually accomplish, not just symbolically, but functionally?
Or, to put it more bluntly, why have an open data policy?
As part of the What Works Cities initiative, the Sunlight Foundation is working with cities across the country to help support the adoption of meaningful and sustainable open data policies. But what I heard in our session was that other factors — namely strong executive support, capable IT staff, department-level buy-in, outside pressure from community groups and an engaged public — were the ingredients that truly mattered most. It seemed to some of the open data practitioners in the room that it was these factors that could get datasets online, not a static policy document filled with the flowery legalese of “whereas” clauses. continued…
first published week of: 02/08/2016